The difference may seem trivial, but it raises profound questions about the meter’s ability to measure listener intent.

The meter can’t tell you whether the panelist is listening to the station or is simply in the vicinity of someone who is.

More troubling is the fact that repeated Arbitron analyses have shown that when panelists leave a station, they rarely tune to another. They simply disappear.

Maybe the radio station was switched off, or maybe the meter simply lost the signal because of noise and interference, or the panelist tucked the meter away.

So we can’t assume that what the station was doing at the time had anything to do with a change in the meter count, up or down.

There’s also research that shows that listening spans for virtually every format are nearly identical. Formats don’t seem to matter. Rock, CHR, Country listeners all listen for ten minutes at a time.

That suggests that meter flows are driven more by meter technical issues than listener behavior.

These issues are enough to raise serious questions about whether PPM is capable of measuring listener likes and dislikes.We also can’t forget that PPM meter counts for most stations are abysmally low.

It might seem that just trending meter counts over time could overcome the inadequacy of sample, but that defense overlooks one important point about PPM.

In the diary world participants rotate out every week. New people replace last week's participants, so the independent sample increases over time.

That's not the case with PPM. Nielsen minimizes turnover with the same panelists carrying meters week after week for years.

Over time the apparent in-tab for a song’s score may grow, but the majority of panelists are the same people.

We’re back to our one person music test with the same panelists rating a song over and over.

If that’s not enough to make you skeptical, let’s look at the meters themselves.

The 1980s technology behind the meter relies on an analog system to separate the encoded signal from the broadcast audio, ambient noise, and interference. Research has shown that PPM meters miss at least 30% of the listening that it ought to recognize.

So there’s drop-out.

Because of the drop-out, Nielsen computers use a series of editing rules to fill in the gaps. For example, you can get up to three minutes of credit for a period of time when the meter can’t ID the station if the meter later finds your station.

That’s just one of several editing rules that fill in the gaps created when the meters get confused.

As a result of the gaps and editing rules that fill them in, minute by minute is really not as precise as it might appear.

Maybe your meter count increased because of editing, and the panelist was listening all the time. Maybe the count declined because the meter could no long confirm that the panelist was still listening. Maybe the panelist wasn’t even listening to the station.

All are possible, and while these sorts of problems tend to average out over weeks and months, it makes drawing conclusions about what is happening with meters every minute questionable.

Any one of these problems ought to disqualify PPM as a tool for testing content. Taken as a whole, it suggests that randomly choosing which songs to play is as accurate as relying on meter flows.

If you really care about playing songs that your listeners want to hear, the only reliable way to do it is to ask them.

October 06, 2014

Develop an ongoing measure of "affinity" that is designed to reflect the advertising value of the unique relationship listeners have with their stations. The mission of this (effort) is to design a relevant, timely and accessible metric that captures audience involvement.

At the time we noted that the company’s new found interest in measuring affinity was ironic because Arbitron had essentially stopped measuring affinity when it switched to PPM.

A year after the announcement without much explanation the idea was dead. There would be no engagement metric–at least from Arbitron.

We speculated that Arbitron may have killed the idea because engagement measures an active listener wilfully choosing one station over another.

PPM does not measures listening. It measures only “drive-by” exposure. Arbitron could not repurpose PPM ratings to create a measure of engagement.

Ironically, while PPM cannot tell us anything about engagement, the diary does.

It is a good instrument to measure engagement because the listener herself writes down the stations she listens to, and how often. If she is really engaged with a station, she is going to write it down a lot.

Now five years later, another company is rolling out an engagement metric, but not for radio. For web advertising.

And the irony is particularly telling given that the Media Rating Council (MRC) has already accredited the engagement metric. It’s from a company you’ve probably never heard of, Chartbeat.

Web analytics firm Chartbeat says it is the first to be certified by the Media Ratings (sic) Council for a new way of measuring the actual attention of readers, as part of a move to get publishers and advertisers to stop focusing only on clicks and pageviews.

Chartbeat measures the amount of time a viewer spends reading online content arguing that the time spent with content is more important than things like unique viewers.

As we pointed out in the 2009 post:

We at Harker Research have found that there is a strong correlation between high Time Spent Listening (TSL) and affinity. As one goes up, the other one does too. If a listener has a natural attraction towards a radio station, she probably listens to it a great deal. She listens less to a station that she feels less strongly about.

Read the prediction of one digital ad analytics firm as reported by AdAge:

With the viewability standard in place, creative agencies should expect the ground to continue shifting toward attention metrics -- whether cost per hour, cost per 30 seconds or something else. "I don't think it will be one single metric," said Jonah Goodhart, CEO of Moat, a digital ad analytics firm. "We will see a shift on transacting on viewability in late 2014 or early 2015," he added. "This idea of buying media on the metric that makes the most sense for you is where we'll see the world going."

Yet at a time when advertisers are embracing engagement and turning away from metrics of reach and unique viewers, radio is heading in the opposite direction, using a measurement that emphasizes reach over engagement.

PPM “atomizes” radio reducing radio listening into homogenous ten minute listening spans preventing radio from capitalizing on its unique ability to engage.

Maybe Nielsen should take another look at engagement. Maybe Arbitron was on to something in 2009, but didn’t have the right tools to develop the metric.

September 15, 2014

The 2014 NAB Radio Show will be remembered as one of the most glitch-free Radio Shows in memory. No major on-stage gaffs, everything was on-time, and there were some great moments.

However, those great moments can’t disguise the fact that it felt like the NAB was simply going through the motions. In that regard, radio’s trade representative was all too representative of the state of radio.

Let’s compare this year’s show to an earlier show. As the chart illustrates, 2014 was a very slim show compared to previous years. Less than half the sessions, a third of the exhibitors, a single suite compared to sixty or so in the past.

Most telling was the decline in numbers of sessions. Compared to (say) the San Francisco event in 1991, the number of management sessions was reduced by 44%, management sessions were cut in half, and programming sessions were virtually eliminated, cut by three-quarters.

Yes, radio isn’t what it used to be. Maybe a slimmed down Radio Show is just symptomatic of a slimmed down radio industry.

The Radio Show like radio itself talks a good game, yet today delivers far less than in the past.

What does every industry leader highlight as radio’s strength? What do we hear time and time again?

The declaration has evolved from a credo that radio lived by to a hackneyed clique that too many of radio’s leaders mumble as they carry on the business of systematically eliminating original content.

The attitude was evident in the Radio Show’s programming "track." Very little time was devoted to content.

Most of the programming sessions were devoted to online issues.

New platforms, social media, and related issues. Do we really need more discussions about Twitter? Do we really need to devote the little time set aside for programming issues on Facebook versus Instagram?

The session consisted of two vendors selling their online platforms. One platform allows listeners to engage directly with each other and the station in real-time, on a platform you own and control.

The other enables listeners to connect with news, sports and their favorite artists and bands using real-time keyword/ song/ artist search, (to) connect with their friends and make new ones from all around the world.

Both are probably fine products, but is either one going to save radio?

If the key to radio’s continued success (and some would argue the key to its survival) is content, maybe the Radio Show ought to make content THE programming topic.

Yes, there were a couple of personality oriented sessions. Kudos to the participants because they were the only people who talked about content and meant it.

But content includes much more.

Any new formats worth discussing? Is EDM really a format? Is Talk Radio really on the ropes? How is the oldies format evolving? Anyone at NAB notice WCBS-FM’s success in a format theoretically well past its use-by date?

The only time mellennials come up is in the context of social media and their obsession with smartphones. OK, we’ve got that. To reach them we need to be on phones and use social media. Got that too.

Now, what formats do we need to offer to get them to listen? Will the next generation want news on the radio? How do formats need to evolve for the next generation of radio listeners?

After all, if your product sucks, who’s going to want to hang out with you, no matter the platform?

The Radio Show is the last surviving national forum to discuss these critically important difficult questions. And instead it offers discussions about Pinterest.

It may seem unfair to pick on the NAB, but these are challenging times. The industry has to make a great many difficult decisions to defend itself against digital competitors. The NAB Radio Show is the perfect (and last) forum in which to explore and debate the many critical issues.

Maybe the direction radio is headed is the right one. Or maybe we’re headed down a dead-end road. The NAB can help show us the way, but it has to take the Radio Show seriously.

Today everyone in this business is expected to do more. Why should the NAB be the exception?

July 10, 2014

It ought to go without saying that people choose a radio station based on the quality of its content. History has shown that radio stations with better content beat stations with poorer content.

If you had any doubt, recent rating trends should erase any question.

And the implication is clear: Stations that have cut programming costs by cheapening their product will ultimately pay a significant price for their actions.

In January of this year Rush Limbaugh switched affiliates in New York and Los Angeles. In each case, Limbaugh left the leading News-Talk station and moved to a much weaker competitor.

Now with six months of PPM data we can see what happened. In both instances the stations that added Limbaugh benefited, and the stations that lost Limbaugh took major ratings hits.

Content matters.

Lose an important programming element that draws listeners to the station and you’ll likely lose listeners. If your competitor capitalizes on the change, perhaps by hiring a key personality you let go, you could ulitimately pay for it.

The graph illustrates what’s happened in New York and Los Angeles over the past few months.

We created an 6+ share index based on station ratings in the fourth quarter of 2013 before the switch. We then calculated how ratings have changed since Limbaugh switched.

Indexing this way enables us to easily compare rating trends across markets. All stations start at 100. An increase to 200 means a station’s share has doubled, 300 tripled, and so on.

An index that moves below 100 means the station has lost share. An index of 33 means that the station only has a third of its original audience. Put another way, an index of 33 means the station has lost two thirds of its listeners.

In Los Angeles, KFI has drifted down and stands at an idex of 78. That tranlates into a loss of about half a share point. The station has been a dominant News-Talk station for years, and it remains so, but even it took a hit from the departure of Limbaugh.

Given PPM’s rating compression, a half share loss can add up to a three or four station rank decline.

KEIB, Limbaugh’s new home, saw immediate gains. The station now indexes at 265. While it still ranked well below KFI, KEIB has seen its full week AQH nearly double, and Limbaugh’s time-slot numbers nearly triple. (All comparisons are based on three month averages to smooth out wobbles.)

We should note that Clear Channel owns both KFI and KEIB, so the move was made for strategic reasons. The fact remains, however, that the group's flag-ship News-Talk station took a hit.

In New York the changes have been much more dramatic.

WABC lost a quarter of its 6+ AQH in the first month without Limbaugh, and has continued to lose listeners virtually every month since.

Today the station indexes at 35, indicating that two thirds of the station's quarter-hours have evaporated since the beginning of 2014.

WOR closed out 2013 with about half the quarter-hour persons of WABC. Today the station indexes at 370, suggesting that the station share is nearly four times its pre-Limbaugh level.

After years of consistently trailing WABC, WOR is now essentially tied with WABC in full-week AQH. During Limbaugh’s time-slot WOR has tripled its numbers and bests WABC by a significant margin.

Of course WOR also acquired Sean Hannity, and WABC made several personality changes in addition to adding Limbaugh, but these additional factors do not change the lesson:

Content matters.

It matters in every format, in every competitive situation. Listeners have options, more than ever. They will not remain loyal to stations that stop delivering on expectations.

Too many broadcast leaders have decided that cheaper trumps better, that downgrading the product to squeeze a little more profit out of local radio is good business.

The next quarter’s bottom line might look a little better, but the lessons of what’s happened in New York and Los Angeles suggest that the gains are short lived. The negative long term implications will long remain after the momentary bump in profit is forgotten.

October 14, 2013

There are plenty of pundits who think so, but as we recently pointed out every mainstream radio format goes through repeated life cycles. At some point every format seems to be near extinction only to come roaring back, renewed and stronger than ever.

We’ll save a deeper discussion of format life cycles for a later day, but here’s the one aspect that we need to keep in mind as we debate the health of Talk Radio: As a format gains more momentum it attracts listeners of a certain demographic and psychographic.

These listeners become the core audience of the format, and continue to listen as they age. The core audience grows older, moves through the demo, and ultimately ages out of the demo.

The format’s momentum stalls because the format cannot replace its aging listeners with younger listeners.

Talk critics delight in pointing out Talk Radio’s aging audience as proof that Talk is on its last legs, but every format reaches this point in its life cycle.

At this very moment virtually every mainstream format is aging. CHR, AC, and Classic Rock as well as Talk are all getting older.

(Consolidation and radio’s current fixation with centralized programming is worsening the problem, and the major groups that operate cookie-cutter formats across markets are going to pay a price in wilting market shares. But we digress.)

The basic problem is this: People don’t listen to their parent’s radio stations.

Listeners who are aging into Talk Radio’s prime demos have parents who listened to Talk Radio. They may be as politically engaged as their parents, they may share many of the beliefs and viewpoints of their parents, but they still want their own radio station.

If you’re in a format that’s getting a little too old, you have a choice. You can stick with the old format and squeeze as much money out of the aging audience as possible, or you can bite the bullet and recreate the format for younger listeners growing into the target demo.

History shows that the first option makes more money in the short term, but only delays the inevitable. Worse, it opens the door for a new competitor to reinvent the format and hasten your station’s demise.

(There are rare heritage stations that manage to reinvent themselves every decade or so, but the odds of success are low, particularly if there are competitors ready to pounce.)

What does all this mean for Talk Radio?

As formats go, Talk Radio is long in the tooth.

The formula has worked well beyond any other format’s normal life cycle. But while Talk has proved it’s ability to outlive other formats, a format’s age span is no more elastic than a listener’s age span.

The title of Part 1 of this discussion, Talk Radio is Dead, Long Live Talk, is a reference to the 15th century phrase The King is Dead, Long Live the King, addressing the ephemeral status of a king. A king is the ruler of his empire, but upon his death, a new king becomes the ruler. Thus the notion of succession, that kings may die, but the throne is forever.

One day Talk Radio 1.0 will run its course, but that does not mean the end of Talk Radio. It will simply herald Talk Radio 2.0.

History and the cyclical nature of formats makes this a certainty. The only question is what form Talk 2.0 will take.

Pundits and self-proclaimed futurists speak confidently of the future as if they have some special gift for seeing the world over the horizon. However, study after study has shown that the only accurate futurists are the ones that admit we can’t predict the future.

CHR was pretty much written off as a tired out-of-fashion format when Saturday Night Fever reignited the format in 1977. Alternative came out of nowhere to reinvigorate a stumbling Rock format twenty years later.

Reborn formats rarely announce themselves before they take off, and rarely take the form that radio assumes. That’s why we suspect that Talk Radio 2.0 is not going to follow the arc that Talk pundits are predicting.

A lot of the punditry predicts that Talk Radio will become less tempestuous, more measured, less extreme. Nicer.

We don’t think so.

Stations will try it. We’ll have more intellectual hosts, more balanced discussions, less verbal bomb throwing.

But it will fail.

We talk with literally thousands of Talk Radio listeners every year, and our research has shown that the next generation of Talk listeners is different than this generation’s, but no less passionate.

They are not looking for a watered-down version of Talk Radio 1.0

We think Talk Radio 2.0 is going to sound considerably different from today’s Talk, but more from a structural standpoint, not an ideological standpoint.

Perhaps when Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity decide to retire there will be others capable of filling their shoes, but perhaps not.

In their absence, the format will begin to experiment with shorter faster paced shows, and there will be few three and four hour shows. Talk 2.0 will have more in common with the old radio networks than Talk 1.0.

So is Talk Radio dying? No. Talk 1.0 maybe, but there will be a 2.0. Long live Talk!

September 10, 2013

At least that’s what the pundits say. Talk Radio is dying. It’s history!

Of course it has been dying for years according to the critics. Newsweek alluded to its passing in a cover story in 2009.

The fact that Talk Radio is still alive while Newsweek is gone should not go unnoted.

Since then there has been a steady stream of stories questioning the survivability or relevancy of Talk, invariably invoking the name of Talk Radio’s bad-boy poster child Rush Limbaugh.

Remember Sandra Fluke? Rush Limbaugh called the poor Georgetown law student a slut, and all hell broke loose.

The Fluke controversy led to sponsor boycotts, and a condemnation pile-on that included many Talk Radio “experts” and high profile personalities including Don Imus of nappy-headed hos fame. (There’s the pot calling the kettle black.)

Look at the impact of the Fluke remark on Limbaugh's Google search traffic below (click to enlarge). The blue line is Mike “more conservative less controversial” Huckabee’s searches over the same time.

Meanwhile others were taking a wider swipe at radio. The Hollywood Reporter gave a bitter Tom Leykis a platform to vent in a breathless piece called How Radio Will Kill the Radio Star.

Shirley Halperin, who penned the piece tells us that:

Leykis left his first love (broadcast radio) not because he couldn’t get paid, but because he believes traditional radio is dying.....Radio audiences are getting older (more than a third of talk-radio listeners are 65 and up) and the personalities are aging out of relevance.

And if there were any doubt whether Talk Radio was dying, it was put to rest when a major Captain of the Radio Industry, Lew Dickey, confirmed the prognosis.

Even a year after the Fluke incident, Lew Dickey was still talking about the destruction that Rush had done to Talk Radio and his company. And it was newsworthy enough that the Huffington Post picked up a radio trade story quoting Dickey:

Clearly, it's been well documented that the talk side has been challenged....There has been residual hangover on the talk side in terms of advertisers sitting out and not placing there.

Clearly that's had an impact not only on our network business but it's had an impact on some of the news talk stations that we own.

Arbitron added its official imprimatur to the Talk Radio is Dying meme last month noting ominous trends in Talk Radio’s ratings:

News/Talk's lead over Pop CHR and Country has shrunk in each of the past two months, and for the first time since we began keeping our format records, it recorded two consecutive books below a 9 share, finishing at an 8.7 in July.

Now summer is historically the lowest time of the year for News/Talk listening, and we will be keeping a close eye on the results as August and September approach, but it's worth noting that the format's summer shares have declined about 10% since 2011.

So is it true? Are we looking at the end of Talk Radio?

No, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the report of Talk Radio’s imminent death is greatly exaggerated.

All formats go through periods of boom and bust. Every one of them.

Think about Top 40. According to Arbitron, CHR is currently the top rated format in PPM markets, in 25-54 no less! Yet Top 40 has been declared dead more times than Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

CHR might be riding high now, but in the 1980s stations were bailing out of CHR right and left. And many stations that stuck it out denied they were CHRs.

It was a time when every CHR tried to pretend they were really AC and every AC wanted to call itself Mix. Now look at the two formats.

Today Country is doing well, but there have been dark days for that format too. Remember when the Eagles were in power rotation?

Every format experiences different levels of success in repeating life-cycles. Every format goes through periodic transformations, periods of creative destruction.

For the most part, a cycle is roughly every ten to fifteen years, coinciding with generational shifts in tastes.

Few people want to listen to their parent’s radio station.

The CHR format dates back to the 1950s, but today’s CHR is very different from Gordon McLendon’s KLIF, Bill Drake’s KHJ, or Mike Joseph's WCAU.

The KSAN of Tom Donahue was unlike any of today’s Rock stations, but AOR continues to thrive. The same is true of virtually every other mainstream format.

What about Talk Radio?

Modern Talk Radio was born on August 1, 1988. That was the day that Rush Limbaugh debuted on WABC, 25 years ago.

Back then Ronald Reagan was President. Miami Vice and Murphy Brown were hit TV shows. Rick Astley, George Michael, and Richard Marx all had Billboard’s Top 100 hits.

In those 25 years we’ve seen at least one boom and one bust period for every music format. Yet Talk Radio has not really changed that much.

Why? Because Rush Limbaugh is still on the air.

Limbaugh is about all radio has that is still relevent for many people. Were it not for Rush, radio would hardly be mentioned at all in general market news sources, and the few mentions would be the same old radio is dying story.

The clock has stood still for Talk Radio because the format’s spiritual leader continues to command the biggest megaphone, the most buzz, and the largest audience.

The pattern of radio format transformations suggests that formats evolve because they have to. Even after a format falters, intrenched leaders refuse to adapt.

Leaders make too much money to risk taking a chance.

Talk Radio is too successful, and Limbaugh is too critical for the format’s continued success for stations to try something new.

But what if Limbaugh quits tomorrow? What if he tires of carrying the format and decides bottling tea is more fun?

Talk Radio will have to reinvent itself. It will have to experience (some might say suffer) the same transformation that every other format experiences.

And like every other format before it, Talk Radio will ultimately be stronger because of it.

In part 2 we will explore what Talk Radio 2.0 might look like. Hint: It won't sound like your father's Talk station.

June 20, 2013

After nearly a decade of declaring broadcast radio near death, a touch of reality is beginning to seep into the internet radio discussion.

Digital pundits now admit that local radio is far from dead. And you won’t believe what they think will save internet radio.

Writing at Engadget.com, Brad Hill, former VP of AOL, admits that American use of local AM/FM radio hardly budged between 2001 and 2011:

So it’s evident that people are dipping their toes into various forms of internet radio without abandoning their terrestrial stations.

Dipping their toes?

Mr. Hill is way too kind to internet radio.

As we have repeatedly shown here at Radio Insights, large numbers of people have sampled various streaming services, but the numbers are tiny compared to American consumption of local radio.

But in the digital world, hope springs eternal.

In the digital world, pundits believe a major disruption is always just around the corner, just one gadget, one line of code, one algorithm short of a major breakthrough.

The latest digital straw pundits are grasping at is Apple’s iRadio.

While admitting that internet radio hadn’t hurt local radio much yet, he notes that Michael Robertson CEO of DAR.fm, feels that Apple’s recently announced iTunes radio service will accelerate consumer adoption of internet radio:

There’s no question that it will change from 10/90 (digital/analog) to 90/10 because FM cannot compete with the benefits of internet-delivered music.

What’s odd about quoting Robertson is that DAR.fm is a broadcast radio time-shifter. According to the website:

DAR.fm is a service that lets you record radio stations and shows so you can listen whenever you like. Please browse the site to find some radio to record.

The home page lists suggestions that include Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Stephanie Miller, and many other broadcast talk shows.

Noticeably absent are internet originated shows.

Apparently Robertson hasn’t found any internet content worth recording, so he has built a business model around recording AM and FM shows.

After declaring Internet radio flawed, flailing, and failing, Hill finally gets around to the point of his piece. Internet radio can succeed only if it has compelling content!

Yes, Internet radio needs content!

After a decade of watching Internet radio sputter and stall, at least one digital pundit has finally admitted the problem: Internet radio doesn’t have compelling original content! Local radio continues to succeed because of it does.

And Hill has a solution:

It is up to Apple, or Google, or Rhapsody, or Spotify, or Pandora, or Amazon, or another internet player to break down the perceptual walls within which internet radio is trapped, developing content or importing stars that will compel users to commit more of their attention to the platform.

Well that’s simple enough.

Of course, internet radio is now twenty years old. Internet radio isn’t new. It’s not novel any longer.

If any major internet company knew how to create compelling content, it would have already tried.

Remember how Google was going to create original content for YouTube? How’s that going?

Hill’s alma mater, AOL, has been trying to create compelling product for years. So has Yahoo.

Internet companies are brilliant at creating new technologies to steal and repurpose content created by others (like DAR.fm), but they are really lousy at creating original content.

Amazon create original content? Not likely. Apple? Forget about it. iRadio is about selling more tunes on iTunes, not creating original content.

Hill reveals the depth of his naivete when he closes with this:

Technology alone might not be enough to disrupt the nearly 100-year-old technology of terrestrial radio. But technology plus killer content can do it.

Technology has nothing to do with success. It's all about content.

The continuing success of local radio proves that compelling content trumps technology.

The danger is that local radio is starting to pay more attention to delivery systems than content. Radio is distracted and somewhat intimidated by digital competitors, and is responding in the wrong way.

Too much energy and attention is focusing on platforms. Meanwhile, product innovation is lagging. Radio hasn’t created a new format in decades.

In that sense, Hill has a point. If local radio stops innovating and creating compelling programming, it opens the door for internet radio.

If local radio falls into this trap, broadcast will have lost a tremendous advantage.

April 14, 2013

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.”

With that attitude, Humpty Dumpty might have been the first new-media pundit. Like Humpty Dumpty, new-media types take delight in twisting the meanings of words to illustrate their more evolved view of the world.

An example is the word local as in local radio.

Three years ago one pundit proclaimed:

There is no longer any such thing as "local" as we traditionally use the term....The definition of "local" is both expanding and shrinking at the same time.

We're discovering that when given the chance, people are a lot more interested in what they're interested in, as opposed to what their physical neighbors are doing. Going forward, then, the real kings of media will be local in a totally different sense.

Humpty Dumpty would be proud.

Godin first fabricates a past, and then declares that the future will be different from this fabricated past. And finally he redefines the word local based on this fiction.

Seth has essentially doubled-down on the original new-media rubbish about local changing, not only redefining local radio, but also distorting the notion of community.

Both the original and this copy-cat post are committing the biggest mistake that new media pundits make.

They believe that delivery systems are more important than content. They then compound the mistake by believing that new delivery systems will change what people want and value.

None of the new-media delivery systems have replaced local radio because local radio is local because of its content, not the location of its transmitter.

Yes, today it is primarily delivered through local broadcast facilities, but that is because broadcast is the means by which the majority of local media consumers want it delivered.

One day a majority of listeners may want it delivered a different way, and local radio will have to change the way its content is delivered.

Radio critics keep claiming that the latest new media product whether Twitter, Pandora, Facebook, Craig’s List, or some other new product will make local radio less relevant and ultimately render local radio obsolete.

Yet radio keeps hanging in there defying a decade’s worth of new-media death notices.

And local radio will continue to defy the critics’ predictions as long as it ignores these self-serving criticisms.

The only way that local radio could become less relevant is if radio lets it happen.

Those within the radio business who advocate homogenized centralized voice-tracked radio in the belief that local no longer matters will pay a price as long as there remains broadcasters who understand the value of real local radio.

October 11, 2012

If you ran a company that produced two products, one that delivered more than 95% of your revenue, and a second that delivered less than 5%, which would you give more attention to?

Probably the one that produced nearly all the company’s revenue. Right?

And which product would you invest in more heavily? The one that makes all the money, or the one that doesn’t?

You’d want to invest in the product that makes 95% of your revenue, wouldn’t you?

Then why is radio cutting broadcast budgets to finance its digital follies? Why is the cash cow being sacrificed to compete with digital services that make no money and probably never will?

Revenue figures for the first half of 2012 are in and they look pretty much like the hypothetical company we’ve described. The graph below shows first half revenue.

Broadcast spot revenue came in at $6.8 billion, while digital, that tiny orange sliver on the graph, totaled less than $400 million.

In other words, running broadcast spots generated nineteen times the money radio got from digital.

(And rumors persist that groups are fudging the digital numbers to make streaming look more successful than it is.)

On top of that, digital growth has slowed. Digital only increased an anemic $22 million over the same period in 2011, an increase of only 4.7%.

At this growth rate, digital won’t surpass broadcast spot revenue until well into the 22nd century!

Compare those number to the darling of digital radio, Pandora.

Pandora closed its 2012 fiscal year proudly bragging about its advertising revenue of $240 million. Last year broadcast radio stations generated $709 million in digital sales, nearly three times as much.

Broadcast radio continues to be a huge financial success, generating margins that the NAB’s former president David Rehr once declared obscene.

Pandora, the focus of digital boosters, the subject of countless new-media success stories, has yet to make a profit, and admits it may never make a profit.

Yet broadcast radio is obsessed with growing digital dollars to prove it is just as good as Pandora.

And radio is financing this Don Quixote-worthy effort by diverting dollars that should be invested in the local broadcast product.

Yes, radio may ultimately become a product primarily delivered via computer and smartphone, but if its product is debased in a rush to be just as good as Pandora, then no one will listen to it no matter how it is delivered.

Dance with the one that brung ya is a reminder that no matter how tempting a new alternative might look, one shouldn’t forget the thing that got you there in the first place.

Radio makes those obscene profits by delivering a local product that meets the wants and needs of listeners who live in the same community.

If radio starts to ignore its local roots and historical connection to the communities it serves, then it may succeed in equaling Pandora-–as a failure.

August 24, 2012

There was a time not long ago when radio broadcasters were united sharing a vision of a vibrant industry full of opportunity and potential.

The recession and new-media’s growing threat has fractured this shared confidence, creating radio’s Great Schism. Today radio’s leaders are deeply divided by dramatically different visions of radio’s future.

One vision sees broadcast radio entering its sunset years. This mind-set believes that new media’s assault will prevent radio from ever recovering its former glory.

Those who share this vision believe the best is behind radio.

With a dark foreboding future facing the industry, they believe that radio’s past necessities are today’s luxuries.

Local program directors, live announcers, marketing budgets, and the other tools that every station once used to drive ratings are expenses that this faltering business can no longer afford.

Every traditional medium making the transition to digital has seen significant declines in revenue, so why would radio be any different?

Even if we use the most optimistic newspaper numbers to estimate radio's future digital revenue outlook, there's still a good chance that local radio, once a $20 billion industry, will become a $6 billion industry.

If one believes that streaming will ultimately replace broadcast radio, then there’s no choice but to dramatically lower costs.

This realization is perhaps why large public groups in particular have chosen to cut expenses by abandoning radio’s unique historical strength as a personal local medium.

They believe radio’s economic survival depends on it.

But what if this pessimistic vision of radio’s future is wrong?

There are those who see radio entering a new transformational phase. While radio has faced challenges from new media in the past (and predictions of its imminent demise), it has survived by creating new products that revolutionized radio.

Believing that radio’s past is its prologue, broadcasters who hold this more upbeat view of radio’s future continue to invest in the broadcast product, with local talent, entitled local program directors, and respectable marketing budgets.

The hope is that good local programming will enable radio to hold on to its broadcast audience (along with their much higher cost per point value), while at the same time giving the industry time (and money) to develop new digital products.

We were reminded of these differing visions as we surveyed the results of a Harker Research ratings analysis looking at radio group ratings success rates.

Presumably with greater resources, one would expect the largest groups to have the highest proportion of winners, but that isn’t the case. Smaller groups with more limited resources are outperforming some of the largest groups.

Companies like Hubbard and Cox manage to win in more markets, despite competing against much larger groups.

Obviously there are many factors that go into a radio group’s ratings performance, but could it be that smaller groups are approaching radio’s challenges differently? Are they more optimistic that radio can remain masters of its own future? More willing to invest?

It will be years before we know which vision of radio’s future is the right one. The tell-tale sign will be whether future rating winners are the homogenized products of central planning, or local radio stations that take the slogan live and local seriously.

If radio’s optimists are right, and the pessimists preparing for radio’s sunset years are wrong, the pessimists will have done irreparable harm to their companies.

Stripping stations of the tools necessary to grow audience will ultimately back-fire, driving listeners into the arms of stations that continue to evolve and improve the product.

Pandora may have a tremendous lead over its competition, but it remains to be seen whether the service can sustain its lead. As countless Internet companies have discovered, there is no "first-mover" advantage when it comes to new-media.

Nothing that Pandora does is proprietary. Every aspect of Pandora can be replicated, and ultimately improved upon.

Pandora’s lead may seem unassailable, but think about Netscape, MySpace, or AOL. Weren’t they just as dominant?

On the Internet, being first doesn’t prevent someone else from ultimately eating your lunch.

After Pandora’s lovely honeymoon with Wall Street, the investment community is beginning to recognize Pandora’s vulnerability. As we noted recently, Pandora’s stock price is well off its highs.

March 20, 2012

It’s a cliche' that Rush Limbaugh is testing in his defiant response to efforts to get him fired.

(We’re going to skip a review of the controversy, but if you’ve been living under a rock, go to Google News and type in “Limbaugh Fluke slut” to get up to speed.)

We're also not going to gloat and point out that people who have declared broadcast radio dead, writing it off as totally irrelevant, are the same people who are apoplectic that a host broadcasting on this irrelevant medium can generate such passion on both sides.

It seems appropriate to make an observation that hardly anyone else has. This latest Limbaugh Eruption indicates that broadcast radio still really matters.

The teachable moment for radio is what interests us. Will the concerted effort to get Limbaugh canned succeed? Will this hobble his show, either creatively or financially?

Does this open the door for Mike Huckabee, who Cumulus was already grooming to compete against Limbaugh?

And if the effort to boot Rush fails, and it instead boosts Limbaugh’s status, what does it say to us about the kind of radio that your listeners want to hear?

A great deal has been made about “no Limbaugh” dictates coming from major agencies and businesses. While the latest dictates have fueled the debate, the truth is that every controversial host attracts similar dictates.

Howard Stern had more than his share. Virtually every controversial “shock jock” morning man has had them.

And what about upset listeners, critical tweets, and organized Facebook efforts to get controversial personalities fired?

With all this aggravation, why do stations hire shock jocks and then defend them?

Because shock sells, and it sells at a premium.

Limbaugh says outrageous things that infuriate his detractors. But he also has a loyal devoted audience that keeps coming back.

In many markets Rush delivers two or three times the audience that his competitors deliver.

“Mike Huckabee is the latest in a long line of those who have attempted to compete with Rush,” was Premiere’s response when the Wall Street Journal picked up on Huckabee’s roll-out.

And they’re right. Bill O’Reilly, television’s most watched political talking head, couldn’t. Dennis Miller hasn’t. No one at Talk Radio Network has.

Which is why 99.9% of Limbaugh affiliates have not cut him loose since the Fluke story broke.

Shock sells.

Which brings us back to Mike Huckabee.

More Conversation, Less Confrontation. That’s the pitch, and that’s Mike Huckabee.

Perhaps America is ready for less confrontation. Perhaps America is ready for a guitar playing alternative to Rush Limbaugh.

The WSJ reports that Huckabee will launch with 140 stations. We wish Mike Huckabee and his 140 affiliates good luck.

This is a battle that every radio station with a controversial pain-in-the-butt personality should watch.

And it could produce an outcome with profound implications for the future of Talk radio.

February 21, 2012

Critics complain that broadcast radio leaders are timid and unwilling to take chances.

Quite the contrary, history shows that broadcasters have been more than willing to roll the dice in search of the big score.

The latest example is the consolidation of programming, with stations in multiple markets carrying essentially the same product.

Major groups are in the midst of consolidating programming to an extent not seen in radio.

The most extreme efforts essentially eliminate programming decisions at the local level. All programming decisions are made at the corporate level.

Even groups that continue to allow local stations to make some programming decisions are making more corporate decisions. Corporate people may not be dictating programming decisions, but they are heavily influencing them.

Never have so few individuals had such an influence on the programming of such a large proportion of radio stations.

We call this process the nationalization of radio.

The goal is to create a consistent radio product across stations in the same way McDonald’s makes Big Macs and Starbucks makes Frappuccinos.

While today’s nationalization of radio has been the focus of a great deal of discussion, nervous hand-ringing, and criticism, radio has embraced nationalism in the past.

The last attempt was in the 1970s.

National programmers like Jim Schulke in Beautiful Music and Paul Drew in Top 40 called the programming shots for dozens of stations insisting on a consistent product across all stations.

Music was chosen, liners written and produced, and air staff hires approved. No major decision was made without their approval.

FM embraced automation, with entire staffs replaced with machines. Programming decisions were handed off to syndicators who provided canned formats on tape.

No air staff, no Program Director, just people to change the tapes. (This writer’s first job in radio was changing 14" reels of tape on a bank of Scully tape machines for a Beautiful Music station.)

Ironically in the 1970s, the dictatorial manner in which corporate decisions were handed down didn’t raise many eyebrows. Perhaps because it produced winners.

Jim Schulke stations were consistent ratings winners, more often than not ranked number one in their market. RKO under Paul Drew’s direction had the leading Top 40 station in virtually every major market in which they competed (during a time when all markets had at least two Top 40 stations).

But radio prior to consolidation was very different. Radio groups could only own a handful of stations.

RKO’s success may have heavily influenced the direction of Top 40 at the time, but there were proportionately far more independent Top 40 stations that didn’t have to follow Paul Drew’s instructions.

Consultants like Jim Schulke and Bill Drake programmed dozens of stations, but there were far more independent stations competing against them that continued to be programmed at the local level.

Today’s much larger groups may seem to be following in the path of 1970s innovators. However, consolidation has changed everything.

Consolidation has reduced the number of independent broadcasters creating fewer more powerful groups with many more stations.

Today the actions of just a few corporate programmers has a much greater impact on the industry as a whole than did the legendary programmers of the 1970s.

Consolidation combined with corporate driven programming puts radio in new uncharted territory.

Perhaps central control will take radio to a new level of sophistication.

Perhaps nearly identical corporate-wide products will enable radio to compete with digital alternatives that offer a consistent national product.

But product homogenization will only drive audience growth if those corporate decisions made by a handful of people are the right decisions.

It’s like putting all your money on one roll of the dice. If you win, you win big. If you lose, you lose everything.

The outcome has enormous consequences for radio. With digital alternatives gunning for broadcast radio’s dollars, the fate of radio may rest on that single roll.

In our next post we’ll explore the reasons why radio moved from the iron-fisted control of the 1970s to more decentralized control, and the implications for today’s consolidation of programming decisions.

November 29, 2011

Down deep programming people want to believe that there is some magic formula that guarantees ratings success.

We’d like to think that programming a radio station is like baking a pie. Use the right ingredients, mix and cook it properly, and the station will be a winner.

And not only that. Once we found the secret recipe, we’d hope that the recipe could be duplicated in market after market, a success in everyone of them.

Unfortunately, most efforts to replicate successful stations have failed.

Time and time again a format that succeeds in one market fails in others. Each time a radio group replicates a very successful station across other markets, the results are uneven at best.

But like the persistent efforts of medieval alchemists to turn lead into gold, the search continues for that elusive recipe.

Arbitron and Mediabase recently collaborated in an effort to understand what makes a music station successful.

They analyzed music station playlists in an effort to find a link between playlists and ratings success.

Surely there has to be some difference between the playlists of successful and unsuccessful music stations.

Actually no, it turns out there isn’t any:

The percentage of airplay devoted to the most played songs in individual formats is largely the same–whether a station is ranked first in its target demo or not.

Two stations can play the same music in the same rotations and yet one can be a winner and the other not.

You might be thinking that there must be some overlooked non-music explanation. Maybe the winner has a better morning show. Maybe they market themselves better.

Sorry to disappoint, but even if stations in two markets are identical in every respect, the two stations will not produce the same ratings, or even the same rank.

It’s the Butterfly Effect.

Radio markets are like snow flakes: Every market is unique.

A radio station’s share and rank are the consequence of a complex mix of historical and competitive factors.

Long forgotten historical facts (called initial conditions) like a very popular Top 40 or Rock station can tilt a market more pop or rock.

The strength of an Oldies station can have a big impact on a Jack station. A Jack station can have a big impact on a Classic Rock station. CHR can impact rhythmic formats, and rhythmic formats can impact CHR.

A music format does not have some intrinsic appeal that determines a radio station’s share.

Share is determined by music appeal tempered by market history, market characteristics, competitive pressures, and even where the station is on the dial. And a thousand other factors we can’t control.

The Butterfly Effect refers to the belief that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can help create a hurricane weeks later.

November 22, 2011

Radio and television remain powerful vehicles to launch and sustain entertainment careers, something that new media cannot do.

The drama playing out right now for Howard Stern is the latest illustration.

Remember Howard Stern?

You may have to glace at his Wikipedia bio to remember how successful and influential he was while he was on the radio.

TV shows, two books, two highly successful pay-per-view deals. Even three covers of Rolling Stone.

At one point his self-proclaimed status as “King of All Media” might have been true.

But no more.

Scroll down his Wiki entry to the brief Satellite radio section and you’ll see very little. No book deals, no TV, nothing but two channels on Sirius and a huge paycheck.

Stern’s move to satellite made him very rich but also an increasingly irrelevant talking head. Maybe that's why People declared Ryan Seacrest the new King of All Media a few years later.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that someone leaked that Stern was in negotiations with NBC to bePiers Morgan’s replacement on America’s Got Talent.

He’s floated plenty of deal rumors in the past, but this one is different. He really needs this job.

A chair at the judge’s table would give him the prime-time exposure he needs to rebuild his image as someone who still matters.

Because mass media still matters.

Satellite radio is a niche. Something like 95% of Americans don’t listen to satellite, and only a small proportion of the 5% listen to Howard Stern.

Satellite radio is great place to hide if you want to become obscure.

The only way Howard Stern could become even more obscure would be to move to digital media.

All the upbeat predictions about how new-media is replacing traditional media come from new-media stakeholders who pray it’s true.

How many entertainers have come from Social media or YouTube and gone on to become stars?

Yes, there are plenty of events and people that go viral. Singing cats and talking dogs can generate millions of views. But how many careers have been launched through digital media?

The Internet and social media create instant buzz that fades quickly.

Stern is not the only mainstream media star that has lost relevance by abandoning mainstream. Oprah is struggling with her OWN network. Both Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck are off most people’s radar screens.

With Olbermann moving to Current TV and Beck leaving Fox for a subscription internet service, both have fallen out of the national conversation. The power of broadcast and cable has, in this case, trumped the power of their personal brands.

Howard Stern is a highly talented personality, the kind of personality that radio needs right now. But Stern needs radio as much as radio needs Stern--maybe even more.

People talked about Howard Stern because radio gave him reach and influence.

Let's hope he gets the America's Got Talent job, and then abandons satellite's obscurity for a real radio gig.

November 15, 2011

Is there a formula, some special combination of sound codes, that can tell us whether listeners will like a song?

Apparently some people think so. They feel humans are inferior to computers and artificial intelligence in determining what songs you should play.

There’s a tremendous effort going on to build large song databases, coding each tune with such things as tempo, key, and instrumentation.

Perhaps the best known is Pandora’s Music Genome Project (MGP). Musicologists coded Pandora’s 800,000 songs with up to 400 distinct characteristics, everything from chordal patterns to such things as instrumentation and even something called “motion inducing.”

A new collaboration between Columbia University researchers and The Echo Nest, a company that tracks online music and delivers listening suggestions to users, hopes to take the human element out of Internet radio. One goal is to deliver better recommendations and more songs through improved artificial intelligence.

Leave it to computer geeks to conclude that the pesky “human element” is hampering song recommendations.

November 08, 2011

Sports-Talk radio along with the rest of Spoken Word has been in the news quite a bit lately.

More and more Sports-Talk stations are migrating from AM to FM with Clear Channel's KJR and Entercom's WEEI just the latest in an accelerating trend.

What impact is FM having on Sports-Talk? So far, in a positive way but less than you might think.

There are a total of 51 AM and FM Sports stations now measured by PPM, eleven more than a year ago. Of those, nearly two-thirds (61%) are still on AM.

The median share for all Sports-Talk stations is 2.1. Half of Sports stations have a share higher than this, while half have a lower share. (This is based on stations in all markets now measured by PPM that have at least a one share in the latest three months.)

This places Sports-Talk dead last of the formats we’ve looked at so far. Click on chart at left.

Perhaps even more interesting is that FM Sports stations are not out-performing their AM brethren by much. Median share for FM Sports stations is 2.2 compared to AM’s 2.1.

New PPM markets coming on-line make it difficult to compare current median shares to last year’s numbers because the newest markets tend to be smaller than the first PPM markets.

To look at median share trends, we calculate median shares for just the stations that have been in the format and measured by PPM for at least a year.

Looking at just these stations, AM shares are steady at 2.2, while the median share for FM stations has gone from 1.8 to 2.3.

That means all of Sport radio’s growth has come from the FM side. This is clear if we look at format momentum.

If you’ve read our other format analyses, you know that we calculate momentum by comparing each station’s share today to what it was last year at this time, using a three month average.

Positive format momentum means that more stations are higher today than they were a year ago.

Momentum for the format is slightly positive at 52.5%, but this over-all performance conceals considerable differences between AM and FM stations in the format.

Fewer than half (46.2%) of AM Sports stations in the format are up over their 2010 numbers. In contrast, nearly two-thirds (64.3%) of FM Sports stations are higher today than comparable months in 2010.

Keep in mind that there were only 14 FM Sports-Talk stations in PPM markets last year, so FM’s positive momentum is based on a limited number of stations.

That said, the modest gains thus far may just be a hint of why lies ahead as more stations make the switch. Stay tuned.

September 07, 2011

That was the Molotov cocktail recently thrown by a trolling editor apparently in search of combustible material (link not provided–no sense encouraging trolls).

He found it in the form of a rock consultant, who predictably wanted to defend rock’s reputation along with the sizeable cash flow it provides.

Unfortunately, two wrongs don’t make a right.

The question was silly, only posed to serve as an ignition source. Worse yet, the defense was misguided, failing to answer the question, or the more meaningful question behind the question.

No format has ever died.

Formats are like bacteria. They evolve faster than they can be killed.

Each format can be traced back through a series of prototypical formats that preceded it. Formats continually evolve while retaining a good bit of the previous formats’ DNA.

It’s just like natural evolution. We all can be traced back to the original primordial ooze, and some like consultants can be traced back with very few intermediate steps.

The only reason we distinguish between bacteria, cheetahs, and ourselves is so paleontologists know what drawer to store the bones in.

They even invented a fancy name: taxonomy. Taxonomy, the Dewey Decimal System of life, divides the natural world into arbitrary unnatural categories.

Not to be outdone, radio divides programming into arbitrary formats.

As far as we can tell, the original purpose of format labels was to help record companies decide which stations to call to work a record.

Format labels don’t help radio stations or listeners. We’ve yet to find a listener who decides to listen (or not) based on what R&R (R.I.P.) called the station.

As an aside, the fluid amoeba-like nature of formats makes the notion that people “create” formats a slippery one. One can author a label (think Mix, Hot Hits, or Jack), but only God can create a format.

Mere humans and consultants can only make Recombinant DNA and give it a name.

In the days before Mr. Mike translators counted, there were 10,000 program directors, all independent, virtually uncontrollable, programming 10,000 fire-breathing RF emitting entities all providing entertainment. At least the PDs thought they were entertaining.

That PD independence meant there were something like 9,999 different sounding radio stations.

Anyone in radio back in the 1960s and out of rehab will back us up on that.

Like taxonomists who worry about what drawer to put the bones in, people like Bill Gavin tried to herd these cats into a few broad format categories.

He never fully succeeded, and as others reversed his efforts, radio started getting more and more formats, perhaps to help create more record rep jobs...and more lavish conventions.

While radio is now down to about five program directors, and an equal number of record reps, we now have 13,000 emitters, even 13,003 if you count successful HD stations, so the taxonomic task remains unsolved. Perhaps unsolvable.

Which brings us back to our bomb thrower and Rock.

First, Rock is not a format. It is a convenient–-some might even say lazy label that loosely describes a body of music lacking a meat-wearing lead singer.

Rock is to a listener what pornography was to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, they know it when they hear it.

More specifically, people know Hard Rock with the emphasis on hard when they hear it.

This notion that we can lump the Eagles, Alternative, and Metal all together, call it Rock, and then debate whether it is dying is as arbitrary as calling Archaeopteryx lithographica the first bird.

The second problem is using Arbitron ratings to assess the health of a format.

How can both stations soaring in the troposphere with double digits and stations clinging to the right side of a one share be assigned the same format? And be given the same health status?

Its like creating an “average” injury report for a bus accident with a couple of deaths, a few people with serious injuries, and many minor injuries.

“How’s everybody on board doing?”

This is the problem with the response of Rock’s defenders. To “prove” that Rock is far from dead, they point to a few highly successful Rock stations:

But if Rock is dead, you're going to have to explain that to Greater Media in Detroit and Philly where their two Rock stations are usually Top 5 25-54 adults and often higher.

A factually accurate statement that says absolutely nothing about the health of Rock-–like highlighting the bus accident’s minor injuries and ignoring the deaths.

Last month WCSX had a 5.1 and WRIF had a 4.5 share (insert Arbitron disclaimers here).

A total of 84 other Rock stations didn’t fare as well. The average station scored a 3.7, and half of the field were below a 3.6. Seventeen stations couldn’t crack a 2 share.

Hell, the leading Classical station beat 39 Rock stations, and the Classical station is found on the left side of the few remaining analog dials!

Ah, the warm glow.

Other rock defenders channeling Mark Twain reminded us that there has always been talk of formats dying. (You post-literates need to Google: “Reports of my death are greatly”)

That defense misses the mark as well. Like Mel Gibson, all formats go in and out of fashion. Even if formats never die, debating the health of a format is legitimate and something the industry should do more often.

To really assess the health of Rock or any other format, we can’t just point to a few highly successful stations. It take a much more thorough examination of all the stations in a format, and over time.

September 06, 2011

You’ve probably heard about the HD Alliance’s recent success in getting additional car manufacturers to offer HD Radio in their new models.

The latest, the 2012 Kia Soul, joins the redesigned 2012 Toyota Camry and Lexus GS350 as new additions to a growing list.

The total number of badges is 19 including BMW, Bentley, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, and Tesla.

With such a distinguished list of manufacturers, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have something for buyers to listen to?

According to the Alliance, there are about 1,300 HD2-4 stations in the US.

Back out the AM stations simulcasting on sister station HD channels and we end up with maybe another thousand FM options for the 213 million listeners in Arbitron’s 282 measured markets.

The limited number of new stations still might be enough to motivate some buyers to pop for an HD upgrade if the new options appealed to the typical new car buyer.

Unfortunately, buyers will find mostly specialty and niche stations.

HD Radio has created 17 new options for New Yorker FM listeners, for example. These include a Catholic channel from Seton Hall University, a Caribbean channel from SBS, and a “South Asian” channel offered by Emmis.

There’s certainly a place for Catholic radio, Indian radio, and all the other niche and ethnic stations that serve their communities. That’s what radio has always been about.

But is this the industry’s idea on how to make HD Radio a success? Offer mostly simulcasts and a few niche stations that attract small audiences?

All the work convincing more car manufacturers to offer HD may do more harm than good for the industry because it makes the paucity of HD options that much more apparent.

What are new Kia, Toyota, and Lexus owners going to think when they start looking for an HD station and find mostly the same stations they now find on AM and FM?

What are they going to tell their friends about HD Radio?

Let's not forget that many of the same car manufacturers who offer HD Radio today offered AM Stereo in the 1990s, some as standard equipment. Did that save AM Stereo?

Even if every car manufacturer makes HD Radio standard, the service will still succeed or fail based on the quality and variety of the programming buyers find on it.

Unless broadcasters create compelling programming exclusively available on HD channels, the service is dead in the water.

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About Radio Insights

Radio Insights is a service of Harker Research, a leading U.S. media research and consulting company. Harker Research provides innovative and insightful strategic research to help our clients grow.

With nearly thirty years of experience, we’ve helped hundreds of radio stations create innovative solutions to the challenges they’ve faced. Today radio faces a myriad of new challenges. Harker Research is helping our clients prepare for this new world.

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